Name: Scallops Fried in Indian Meal
Ingredients: scallops; fat for frying; Indian meal (cornmeal); coarse sea salt; black pepper; slices of lemon (optional); watercress (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scallops Fried in Indian Meal

Ingredients

Directions

Wash the scallops in cold water and dry them on a clean towel.
Heat a frying kettle half full of fat until it is smoking hot.
Roll the scallops in Indian meal seasoned with salt and pepper.
Drop the scallops into the hot fat and fry until light brown.
Remove them with a skimmer and drain on brown paper.
Serve hot with slices of lemon or watercress.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together579 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together983 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Scallop + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Scallop + lemontop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together79 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).